Ivanka Trump tells father’s fraud trial she cannot recall property deals

Donald Trump’s daughter Ivanka Trump testified on Wednesday that she did not recall details of property deals she worked on at her father’s company, in a New York civil fraud trial that threatens the former US president’s business empire.

Like her brothers Donald Trump jnr and Eric Trump, who testified last week, Ivanka Trump sought to distance herself from the questionable valuation methods that have already been ruled fraudulent by the judge overseeing the trial.

Evidence presented in court showed Ivanka Trump was concerned that her father did not have enough wealth to provide as collateral for loans the Trump Organization used to develop properties in Washington and Florida.

She acknowledged she worked on those deals but said she was not involved in calculating Mr Trump’s net worth.

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“I generally understood that there was a personal guarantee,” she testified. “This level of granularity was not something that I can sit here today and say that I recall.”

The lawsuit by New York attorney general Letitia James, a Democrat, accuses Mr Trump and his family businesses of manipulating real estate asset values to dupe lenders and insurers and embellish Mr Trump’s reputation as a successful businessman.

Mr Trump has acknowledged on the witness box that some of the estimates of golf courses, office towers and other company assets were inaccurate, though he said many were undervalued.

Unlike her siblings and father, Ivanka is not a defendant in the case.

As a top executive at the Trump Organization between 2011 and 2017, Ivanka said she focused on redeveloping the Doral golf course in Florida and the Old Post Office property in Washington.

At the trial, she was shown a 2011 email in which she acknowledged that a requirement by lender Deutsche Bank that her father maintain a net worth of at least $3 billion was a problem but encouraged company officials to approve it anyway.

“We wanted to get a great rate and the only way to get proceeds/term and principal where we want them is to guarantee the deal,” she wrote to a Trump Organization lawyer.

The two sides ultimately agreed to set the net-worth requirement at $2.5 billion, even though her father claimed a net worth of $4.3 billion that year.

She was also shown a 2011 email she received from the federal government expressing concern about irregularities in Mr Trump’s financial statements as the company was proposing to redevelop the Old Post Office, a federal property. Other evidence showed she profited personally from that deal.

She again said she did not recall specifics. “There were many emails, many conversations,” she said.

Mr Trump, who leads his rivals for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination despite a maelstrom of legal troubles, has denied wrongdoing and accused Ms James and judge Arthur Engoron of political bias.

During defiant and rambling testimony on Monday, Mr Trump acknowledged that valuations for his properties were not always accurate but said the errors were not relevant to the financial institutions that used them to price deals.

Donald jnr and Eric Trump testified last week that the financial documents at the heart of the case were not their responsibility, though emails and other documents showed they may have been more involved than their testimony indicated.

Ivanka joined her father during his 2017-2021 term in the White House, leaving her brothers in charge of the company during that time.

Ms James said Ivanka nevertheless was involved in manipulating property values.

“She will attempt today to distance herself from the company, but unfortunately the facts will reveal that in fact she was very much involved,” Ms James said on the courthouse steps in advance of Wednesday’s hearing.

In a ruling that found Mr Trump, his adult sons and 10 of his companies liable for fraud, Mr Engoron described in scathing terms how the defendants concocted valuations. His ruling could strip Mr Trump’s control of some of his best known properties, though that order is on hold during appeal.

Ms James is seeking at least $250 million in penalties, as well as restrictions that would prevent Mr Trump and his adult sons from doing business in New York.

In addition to this case, Mr Trump is a defendant in four separate criminal cases, including two stemming from his attempts to overturn Joe Biden’s 2020 presidential election victory.

Nevertheless, opinion polls show he holds a commanding lead over Republican rivals to face Mr Biden next year. – Reuters